Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  * * * * *

  The quartette played in the long gallery and Claude, knowing that music to his family meant nothing except a tune which, as Mrs. Osborne said, you carry away with you, had steered a very happy course, in the selection of it, so as to satisfy the impulses of filial piety and yet give pleasure to those who like Dora, and, it may be added, himself, did not want so much to carry tunes away, but to listen to music. Thus a selection from the “Mikado,” admirably boiled down for strings, put everybody in a good humour, and Sir Thomas to sleep. Later on a similar selection from “Patience” made Mrs. Osborne again beat time with her fan without disturbing Sir Thomas, and for the rest the exquisite inevitable melodies of Bach and Scarlotti filled an hour’s programme. And when it was over Claude turned to Dora, with whom he was sitting in a window seat, and his eyes glowed like hot coals.

  “Let’s come out,” he said, “and stroll down to the lake. We can’t stop indoors after that. Bach should always be played out of doors.”

  That was finely and justly felt; the next moment came a jar.

  “They charged the mater a hundred and fifty guineas for coming down,” he said, “but it’s cheap, I shall tell her, for real good music. There’s no price you can put upon a thing like that.”

  Again with Dora the check, the jar, lasted but an infinitesimal time, as she turned aside to pick up her fan which had dropped, and as she met his eye again she felt that divine discontent which so vastly transcended in her opinion all other happiness. And it appeared that he, too, was in tune with that.

  “Come out, my darling,” he said. “Let’s get away from these people just for a bit, a five minutes. I don’t want any more music, even though it was more Bach. And I don’t want any supper, do you? They’re going to have supper now.”

  Up went his head, with that little unconscious toss of the chin, and Dora half laughed to hear how at this moment he seemed to put Bach and supper on quite the same level, when there was the prospect of strolling with her outside. There was intense sweetness to her in that, and there was mastery also, which she loved. She felt that even if she had not cared for him, and even if she was particularly hungry, she would have to go with him. But as she rose she could not help commenting on this, wanting, woman-like, to hear the reply that her heart had already shouted to her.

  “You speak as if Bach and supper were equally unimportant,” she said.

  “Of course. There’s not a pin to choose between them, if you’ll just come out with me.”

  “And if I won’t?”

  “But you will,” he said.

  “Not even, ‘please’?”

  He shook his head.

  “Anything sooner than ‘please,’” he said. “Come or not just as you like.”

  To Dora this was tremendously attractive: the absolute refusal to ask anything of her as a favour, even when he so intensely wanted it, was a revelation of the eternal masculine not opposed to but in accord with the eternal feminine. Nothing seemed to her more fantastic and sickly than the sort of devotion that begged for a flower, and sighed and pined under a woman’s unkindness or caprice. “Here is my heart,” he had in effect said to her, “take it or leave it, but if you take it give me yours.” Man gave, and was not woman to give too, in her own kind? She, too, longed to come out into the warm half-darkness of the stars with him, and why, in common fairness, should he be supposed to sue for a favour that which she longed to grant?

  So out they went on to the dim-paved terrace walk. Above the sky was clear and the star-dust strewn thick over the floor of the heaven, and the fantastic shape of the birds on the yew hedge stood clear out against the luminous and velvet blue. A little draught of flower-scented air stole up through the square doorways in the hedge from the drowsy beds, that but dreamed of their daylight fragrance, and somewhere not far away in the park a night jar throbbed its bourdon note, making vibration rather than sound. Dora put her hand through his arm and laughed.

  “I laugh for pure happiness,” she said, “and — and oh, Claude, it’s the real me who is with you now. Do you understand? I expect not, so I will explain. There are several me’s; you rather liked No. 1, which was the chattering and extremely amusing me; that was the one you saw first, and you did like her. Then — oh, well, the other me’s are all varieties of that, and right below them all is the real me. It doesn’t know sometimes whether it wants to laugh or cry or to talk or be silent; it only wants — Oh, it’s like you with Bach and supper about equal. Laughing and crying don’t particularly matter if there is you, just as to you Bach and supper didn’t matter if there was me. And there is. It’s me, as the children say. And you and I make us. It comes in the grammars. I only wanted to tell you that. And now we’ll instantly talk about something else.”

  Claude stopped, and against the faint luminance of the sky she saw his chin protrude itself.

  “I don’t see any reason for doing that,” he said. “It’s much the most interesting thing—”

  “I know.”

  He drew her toward him.

  “Well, you might give a fellow a kiss,” he said.

  CHAPTER IV.

  THE morning delicacy to which Lady Austell was so subject was due to the fact that when staying in other people’s houses she found she saw enough of her hosts and fellow-guests if she denied herself the pleasure of their company at breakfast. In all other respects, she was stronger than most horses, and could go through programmes which would have prostrated all but the most robust without any feeling of unpleasant fatigue, provided only that the programmes interested or amused her or in any way furthered her plans. But she really became tired the moment she was bored, and since sitting at breakfast with ten or twelve cheerful people, with the crude morning sunlight perhaps pouring in at a window directly opposite her, bored her very much, she chose the wiser plan of not joining in those public festivities. But with her excellent tact she knew that at a house like Mrs. Osborne’s everybody was expected to come down, to be in admirable spirits and to eat a great deal of solid food, and so she explained to Mrs. Osborne that she never ate any breakfast. Hence it was that about half-past nine next morning her maid carried upstairs a tray groaning with coffee, hot milk, toast, just one poached egg, and a delicious plate of fruit. Mrs. Osborne had given her a very pleasant sitting room next her bedroom, furnished with Messrs. Linkwater’s No. 1 white boudoir suite, for, like half the house, it had been practically unfurnished; and Austell who had ascertained those comfortable facts when he bade his mother good-night the evening before, caused this particular groaning tray to be brought here also and paddled in to join her in carpet slippers and a dressing gown.

  “I call this a devilish comfortable house nowadays,” he observed, “which is far more than could be said for it in our time. What a pity the Osbornes and we can’t run it together. They would pay the bills, and we could give tone. I wish it was possible to be comfortable, though poor. But it isn’t. Everything comfortable costs so much. Now, darling mother, let loose, and tell me what you think of it all. Really your — your absence of breakfast looks quite delicious. They have given me chops and beef and things. May I have a piece of your melon?”

  Jim and his mother were rather fond of each other, but they seldom met without having a quarrel, for while both were agreed in the general plan of grabbing at whatever of this world’s goods could be appropriated, each despised and, in private, exposed the methods of the other. He, so his mother was afraid, was one of the very few people who was not afraid of her, and she often wished he was. He had lit a cigarette after the bath, and was standing in front of the fireplace, on the thick, white sheepskin rug, smoking the end of it.

  “Dear Jim,” she said, “do you think you had better smoke in here? Mrs. Osborne may not like it.”

  “Oh, she will think it is you,” said Jim calmly, “and so won’t dare to say anything. She fears you: I can’t think why. Now do tell me how it all strikes you. Can you bear it for three days? I can easily; I could bear it for months
and years. It is so comfortable. Now what did you and Mrs. Osborne talk about at dinner? Mr. O. and I talked about the Royal Family. Sir Thomas seems a nice man, doesn’t he?”

  Lady Austell gave him a very generous share of her half melon; it looked rather like a bribe. She was going to indulge in what Jim called humbug, and hoped he would let it pass.

  “I think, dear, as I said to Dora the other day,” she remarked,” that we are far too apt to judge by the surface. We do not take enough account of the real and sterling virtues — honesty, kindness, hospitality—” Austell cracked his egg.

  “I did not take enough account of the effect of hospitality last night,” he remarked, “because I ate too much supper, and felt uncommonly queer when I awoke this morning—”

  “You always were rather greedy, my darling,” said Lady Austell softly, scoring one.

  “I know. I suppose I inherited it from my deli — I mean cerebral-hæmorrhage grandfather. But I don’t drink.”

  This brought them about level. Jim proceeded with a smart and telling stroke.

  “I refer my — my failures to my grandfather,” he said, “so whatever you say about our hosts, dear mother, I shall consider that you are only speaking of their previous generations. Their hospitality is unbounded, their kindness prodigious, but I asked you how long you could stand it? Or perhaps the — the polish, the culture, the breeding of our hosts really does seem to you beyond question. Did you see the stuffed crocodile-lizard in the hall? I will give you one for your birthday.”

  “I think you are odiously ungrateful, Jim,” she said. “I have got them to take Grote for seven years at a really unheard-of price, and all I get in return is this.”

  Jim opened his pale weak eyes very wide.

  “What have I done?” he said. “I have only agreed with you about their kindness, and asked your opinion about their breeding.”

  “You are sarcastic and backbiting,” said his mother. “Only as long as you talk such dreadful nonsense, darling mother,” he said. “You don’t indulge in rhapsodies about the honesty of your housemaid. Honesty in a housemaid is a far finer quality than in a millionaire, because millionaires are not tempted to be dishonest, whereas poor people like housemaids or you and me are. Really, I only wanted to have a pleasant little chat about the Osbornes, only you will make it serious, serious and insincere. Let’s be natural. I’ll begin.”

  He took one of his mother’s crisp hot rolls, and buttered it heavily.

  “I find Mr and Mrs. O. quite delightful,” he said, “and should have told you so long ago if you had only been frank. I do really. There isn’t one particle of humbug about them, and they have the perfect ease and naturalness of good breeding.”

  Lady Austell tossed her head.

  “That word again,” she said. “You seem to judge everybody by the standard of a certain superficial veneer, which you call breeding.”

  “I know. One can’t help it. I grant you that lots of well-bred people are rude and greedy, but there is a certain way of being rude and greedy which is all right. I’m greedy, so was the cerebral grandpapa, only he was a gentleman and so am I. I’m rude: I don’t get up when you come into the room and open the door for you, and shut the window. Claude — brother Claude —— does all these things, and yet he’s a cad.”

  “I consider Claude a perfect gentleman,” said Lady Austell with finality.

  “I know: that ‘perfect’ spoils it all,” said Jim meditatively. “Now Mr. Osborne is a frank cad — that’s how I put it — and Claude a subtle one. That’s why I can’t stand him.”

  “I daresay you’ll do your best to live on him,” said Lady Austell.

  “Certainly; though I shall probably succeed without doing my best. It will be quite easy I expect.”

  “And do you think that is a gentlemanly thing to do?” asked his mother, “when behind his back you call him a subtle cad?”

  “Oh, yes, quite; though no perfect gentleman would dream of doing it. I think Claude has masses of good points: he simply bristles with them, but he gives one such shocks. He goes on swimmingly for a time, and then suddenly says that somebody is ‘noble looking,’ or that the carpet is ‘tasteful’ or ‘superior.’ Now Mr. Osborne doesn’t give one shocks; you know what to expect, and you get it all the time.”

  Lady Austell thought this over for a moment; though Austell was quite unsatisfactory in almost all ways of life, it was impossible to regard him as a fool, and he had the most amazing way of being right. Certainly this view of the frank cad and the subtle cad had an air of intense probability about it, but it was one of those things which his mother habitually chose to ignore and if necessary deny the existence of.

  “I hope you will not say any of those ridiculous things to Dora,” she remarked.

  “Ah; then it is just because they are not ridiculous that you wish me to leave them unsaid. If they were ridiculous you would not mind—”

  Jim waited a second to give his mother time to contradict this if she felt disposed. Apparently she did not, and he interrupted her consenting silence.

  “I shall not say them to Dora, I promise you,” he said, “because, in case they had not occurred to her, she might see the truth of them, and it might put her off. That would damage my chances of living on him. It would be very foolish of me. Besides, I have no quarrel with Dora — I like Dora. But my saying these things to her is superfluous, I am afraid. She sees them all perfectly, though to you they apparently seem ridiculous. Or am I wrong, mother, and do you only pretend to think them ridiculous?”

  Lady Austell felt she could fight a little on this ground.

  “They seem to me quite ridiculous in so far as they apply to Dora,” she said. “She is deeply in love with him, dear child, and do you suppose that she stops to consider whether he says ‘tasteful’ or not?”

  Jim smiled with faint malice.

  “No, she does not stop to consider whether he says it or not,” he replied, “because it is perfectly clear that he does. But when he does, she pauses. Not for long, but just for a second. She doesn’t exactly wince, not a whole wince, at least, but just a little bit of one. You can’t help it if you are not accustomed to it. If I was going to marry Mrs. Osborne, I should wince a little now and then. I don’t in the least wonder that she’s in love with him. I wish you would find me a girl, who would marry me, as handsome and rich as Claude. The only thing is—”

  Jim finished breakfast, and was going slowly round the room looking at the furniture. He paused in front of a saddlebagged divan with his head on one side.

  “The only thing is that though she may get accustomed to ‘tasteful,’ she may also get accustomed to his extraordinary good looks. Of course, then there’s the money to fall back upon. I don’t think I should ever get accustomed to so much. What is — is Uncle Alfred going to allow him on his marriage?”

  “Fifteen thousand a year, I believe,” said Lady Austell gently, as if mentioning some departed friend.

  Jim gave a little sigh in the same style. He had a dreadfully inconvenient memory, and remembered that the original sum suggested was twelve thousand, which his mother had thought decent but not creditable. There was no doubt, so he framed the transaction to himself, that she had “screwed this up” to fifteen. So he sighed appreciatively, and his comment that followed was of the nature of a testimonial.

  “When I marry I shall leave the question of settlements completely in your hands, if you will allow me,” he said. “I think you are too clever for anybody.”

  It was not once or twice, but many times, that Lady Austell had told her son the complete truth in answer to some question of his, and when she had said “fifteen thousand, I believe,” it was only reasonable to expect that the answer would be satisfactory. But Jim always remembered something else, and his memory was terribly good. It was not that he considered twelve thousand a poor sum: he only recalled to his mother’s mind the fact that she had successfully suggested fifteen. And he had not openly stated the fact: he had
merely requested her kindly aid with regard to his own marriage settlements, if there were ever to be any. That should have been to her a completely gratifying request; as it was, it left her with the sense of having been found out. The complete correctness of this impression was shown by Austell’s next words.

  “I think you have been fearfully brilliant about it,” he said, “and I am sure you have made them all think that you considered fifteen thousand far too much. Do tell me: didn’t you say that you thought it was a great responsibility for so young a couple to be — to be stewards of so much wealth? Lord, how I wish somebody would make me a steward. Come in.”

  Somebody had tapped at the door, and to tell the truth Lady Austell was not very sorry to have an interruption, for she had actually used the words that Jim had conjectured in a little talk with Mr. Osborne and his brother in which settlements were very genteelly and distantly alluded to. But there had been a distinct twinkle in Alfred’s eye at this point, and she did not want more cross-examinations. The interruption, therefore, was welcome.

  Mrs. Osborne entered, looking hot and pleased. Jim at this moment was looking at a large engraving of Landseer’s “Monarch of the Glen” (part of the No. 1 white boudoir set) in an angle of the room parallel to the door, and she did not at once see him.

  “Good morning, Lady Austell,” she said. “I thought I would just step up and see what you would fancy doing this beautiful day. There’s some of the party going to motor over to Pevensey—”

  Mrs. Osborne caught sight of Jim, and gave a faint scream.

  “And I’m sure if I don’t beg your pardon, Lord Austell,” she said with averted head, “for I never guessed you were here paying a morning visit to your mamma in your bath wrapper. But I thought somebody said ‘Come in,’ for I always tap at every door now, or clear my throat to give warning, with so many lovers about, bless them.”